Previously posted on my Thrillhead Blog
I am home in Ohio, visiting family for the holiday season. I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday with friends and family as well! 
Month: December 2007
Happy Holidays
Posted by – December 25, 2007
Early Season Syndrome
Posted by – December 19, 2007
Previously posted on my Thrillhead Blog
Every year there’s at least a handful of people who die in avalanches here in Colorado. Some of them are just names… another tragedy. But others are a little closer to home…. For instance, last season two people were killed in an avalanche near Aspen. I didn’t know those two people, but I did know the third person that was with them. Two seasons ago a man died in an early season avalanche on Berthoud Pass. I didn’t know him either, but I did know a few people who were there at the same time and were involved in the rescue attempt.
This year Colorado backcountry skiers were once again reminded of the potential danger of the snow when we heard about Luke Oldenburg, a 31-yr old who was buried in an avalanche on Cameron Pass. We all rejoiced when we heard that he survived the burial and that his friends rescued him. But the rescue was not enough. Luke died of trauma a few days later.
I didn’t know Luke, but there’s a lot I can understand about him. He was an experienced backcountry skier. The news reported that, like me, he’s skied 30 fourteeners. When I heard this information, Luke’s death kind of hit home. I can put myself in his shoes and understand what must have been running through his mind that day… It was early December, and avid skiers like myself just wanted to get out and find some good snow. Luke was a victim of what I call “Early Season Syndrome”. Unfortunately, I had to hear about his death before I was reminded about this potentially deadly syndrome.
What is Early Season Syndrome? It’s similar to what many term summit fever. Except, in this case, the person may not even be attempting a summit. Early Season Syndrome is driven by a backcountry skier’s desire to get out and ski after not being able to satisfy the ski-craving after a long hot summer. This is similar to summit fever being driven by a climber’s desire just to get to the top of a peak. As with summit fever, Early Season Syndrome can cloud a person’s judgement: forgetting to constantly reassess avalanche conditions, risks, and routes can be symptoms of this syndrome. Luke and his friends were all victims of this syndrome as they changed plans that day. They started climbing something they originally planned on avoiding. They were going to avoid it because they knew the potential for avalanches there was high. Yet, when they got there, temptation took over along with Early Season Syndrome, and poor decisions were made. Sometimes people get lucky and nothing happens when poor decisions are made, but this was not the case for Luke and his friends.
I speak of this Early Season Syndrome because I have noticed it’s symptoms in both myself and in other people I ski with. Most skiers are victims of it from time to time. When Frank and I attempted Torrey’s in late November (see Nov. 28th blog entry) we were both under the influence of Early Season Syndrome, but we realized it early, and adjusted our decisions quickly. Unfortunately, most skiers forget about Early Season Syndrome until something tragic happens, like the death of a fellow skier. However, I’m a firm believer that if you can recognize the syndrome, you can help reduce the syndrome’s affects at clouding your judgement.
So, backcountry skiers: Don’t forget when you get out into the backcountry to take a step back. Take a breath. Reassess your situation from time to time. Adjust your routes accordingly. Don’t be pressured by peers and don’t let the desire for snow or a summit affect your judgement. Your life may depend on it.
Other Resources about the Avalanche on Cameron Pass:
CAIC report
Denver Post Article
Goals for this Season
Posted by – December 18, 2007
Previously posted on my Thrillhead Blog
Now that the snow has been falling, I’ve been really eager not just for the ski season, but more for the skiing fourteeners season!
At the end of last year I sat down and came up with my goals for next season. Last season I was able to ski 23 fourteeners from the summit, making my total rise up to 30 ski descents. All but 8 of those 23 descents were done in April, May, and June.
I have 24 fourteeners left to ski, so I am now over half done! Unfortunately, I will not be able to ski all of them next season. Last season I tackled many of the easier peaks during the winter- peaks whose routes were not too difficult and whose roads were still accessible in winter. Many of the remaining peaks I have left are either more difficult descents that can only be done in spring conditions when avalanche danger is at an ultimate low or are peaks that are difficult to reach due to winter road closures. Due to this, my goal is to complete descents of 15 to 20 fourteeners this season.
Some of the more difficult peaks I have to tackle include Crestone Needle, Pyramid, Capitol, N. Maroon, S. Maroon, and Little Bear.
Some other peaks will be interesting due to their circumstances. Culebra, for instance, is accessed through private property. In order to ski this peak we have to contact the owners. Rumor has it that we will have to pay $1000 minimum and have a group of at least five in order to ski this peak. The Windom, Sunlight, and Eolus trio will also be interesting because of their location. In order to access these peaks you have to take a train that runs between Durango and Silverton. We’ll have to ask the train to drop us off at a specific point, hike from there, and set up a base camp to tackle to peaks over the next few days. Timing will be key on this because the train doesn’t start running until May. You have to hope that these peaks are still snow-covered and that weather turns out to be good at the beginning of the month in order to get these done.
The list of the fourteeners I still have to do is below. The ones that are starred are of utmost priority. In order to achieve my goal of at least 15 fourteeners this year I must ski all the peaks I have starred and then at least on of the trios mentioned in the list.
March/April
*Culebra
*Missouri
*Harvard
*Kit Carson
Crestone Needle
April/May
*Sneffels
*Wetterhorn
At least one of the following trios:
El Diente
Wilson Peak
Mt. Wilson
Little Bear
Ellingwood
Blanca
If weather looks right, skills good enough (hope to do at least one of these):
Long’s Peak?
N. Maroon?
S. Maroon?
May
*Eolus
*Windom
*Sunlight
May/June
*Pikes Peak
*Holy Cross
*Snowmass
Next season
Capital
Pyramid
Reflecting on Last Season
Posted by – December 11, 2007
Previously posted on my Thrillhead Blog
Now that the snow has been falling, I’ve been really eager not just for the ski season, but more for the skiing fourteeners season! At the end of last season I sat down and wrote a reflection about my achievements. Today I took a look at this again and realized all I had accomplished in just a couple of months, really. Reflections like this are good at helping me keep things in sight and set goals for this upcoming season. Because of this, I wanted to share this reflection.
Written June 7, 2007
Last weekend I skied Mt. Evans. You can drive to the top of Mt. Evans, but I climbed from Summit Lake which is about 1500 feet below the summit. It was a good day out. Mt. Evans has some great snow and I foresee it being quite good skiing even through August. I think I’ll go back again later this summer and do some car laps for some fun skiing! Anyway, the trip report is here:
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=86970
Yesterday I skied Mt. Massive, making that my 30th fourteener of the season. Unfortunately, when I was up there, a big cold front moved through and we were left in a blizzard with white-out conditions. This made an other-wise boring 14er descent quite interesting as we had to navigate out, not being able to tell which way was even down! We were also blasted with high winds, which would blow me to the ground every few minutes when I had my skis on my pack.
I intended to ski Pikes Peak today, but with the high winds and snow the road to the top of Pikes Peak was closed. My plan for skiing Pikes Peak is to drive to the top, ski either the Railroad couloir or Y couloir down, then climb back up to the top. You can climb from lower down on the mountain, but it makes for a really long day, and I’ve had enough of really long days for the season. Pikes peak can be an easy 14er ski, and I have no intention of making it more difficult than it has to be, so I need to wait until the road opens. Today was my last opportunity to ski that peak, and it’s not happening today, so it’s not happening this season. I will have to wait until next season, when the road opens in May.
So, I will have to end the season with Mt. Massive, a total of 30 fourteener ski descents. What’s next? I leave Saturday for Ohio and then off to Peru. When I return it will be too late in the summer to ski fourteeners from the summit.
My season this year was full of frustration, largely due to the weather. The weather was NOT cooperating. Snow-storm after snow-storm prevented me from weekends where skiing fourteeners was not possible. The major fourteener season should be March and April. I planned on hitting several fourteeners during my spring break, the last weekend in March, but due to weather, I was only able to ski one. By the beginning of April I’d only skied 8 fourteeners this season, where my goal was to do over 20 in the season. I was worried I would not be able to accomplish my goals.
Never-the-less, my season goals were accomplished. My goal was to bang out as many fourteeners as I could, focusing on some of the easier ones this season, just getting them done. I wanted to get at least half-way done (27 fourteeners), but I really wanted to get my numbers into the 30′s. Last year I skied 7 fourteeners. By the beginning of April my total was only up to 15. In about 2 months since then I’ve doubled that total, now having 30 fourteener descents completed. I was turned around on 3 fourteeners this season: 1) Handies, which I went back and did a couple of weeks ago 2) Sneffels, which I still need to go back and hit and 3) N. Maroon which is above my skill level which I need to go back and hit next season or the season after once I’ve had a chance to work on my mountaineering skills. Overall, my success rate has been high, but I expect next season it will be less high since many of the fourteeners I have left to ski are more difficult and/or have less reliable snow.
Despite frustration due to the weather, this season has been good for me in a lot of ways. I’ve climbed so many 14ers now that altitude has little to no effect on me anymore. My trip-planning and route finding skills have improved immensely. I’ve also learned a lot about all the fourteeners as a whole and I have plans in sight for the remaining 24 fourteeners I need to complete. I know the things I need to work on for next season in order to complete my goals as well.
I have goals set already for next season and I will talk about those when next season is closer!
Scientific Findings on Global Warming
Posted by – December 10, 2007
I found this article to be very interesting. There is a lot more science involved in this article, in contrast to Warren Miller’s attacks on Al Gore I linked to yesterday. Excuse me for being a bit of a science geek here, but paleoclimatology is just fascinating to me!
________________________________
UCS News
Excerpt from Clues to End of the Last Ice Age
Obtained from http://www.usc.edu/uscnews/stories/14288.html
In contrast to what is often inferred from the geologic record, carbon dioxide did not cause the end of the last ice age, a new USC study published in Science suggests.
“There has been this continual reference to the correspondence between CO2 and climate change as reflected in ice core records as justification for the role of CO2 in climate change,” said paleoclimatologist Lowell Stott, the study’s lead author and a professor of earth sciences at USC College.
“You can no longer argue that CO2 alone caused the end of the ice ages.”
Deep-sea temperatures warmed about 1,300 years before the tropical surface ocean and well before the rise in atmospheric CO2, the study found. The finding suggests the rise in greenhouse gas was likely a result of warming – but not its main cause.
However, the study does not question the fact that CO2 plays a key role in climate.
“I don’t want anyone to leave thinking that this is evidence that CO2 doesn’t affect climate,” Stott cautioned. “It does, but the important point is that CO2 is not the beginning and end of climate change.”
While an increase in atmospheric CO2 and the end of the ice ages occurred at roughly the same time, scientists have debated whether CO2 caused the warming or was released later by an already warming sea.
Warren Miller on Global Warming
Posted by – December 9, 2007
Previously posted on my Thrillhead Blog
With all of the freshly fallen snow it’s easy to put thoughts of Global Warming behind. Afterall, winter has come!
Warren Miller apparently doesn’t believe in global warming, as seen in his article below. I just want to know how he determined last summer to be the coldest on record because it sure seemed dang hot to me!
_____________________________________
Excerpt from Winter Snow Forecast According to Al Gore
By Warren Miller, Guest Writer, 12-05-07
Obtained from http://www.newwest.net/snow_blog/article/winter_snow_forecast_according_to_al_gore/C458/L41/
When Greenland was first visited many years before Columbus accidentally drifted into the Caribbean, Greenland had already been inhabited, farmed and named Greenland because it was totally green. Otherwise they would have named it Iceland. There are dozens of things besides internal combustion engines that affect the weather. For example: In about 1940 an American oceanographer discovered how to predict European weather as long as six months in advance. He was even able to predict what the weather would be like for the invasion of France during World War II.
His theory: The weather in Europe during the winter is greatly controlled by the temperature of the water in the Gulf of Mexico the summer before. The warm water flows out of the gulf and becomes the Gulf stream where it goes north, finally curving east and collides with cold artic air. How warm it is radiates and causes the atmosphere to warm up according to the temperature differential. This raises or lowers the snow level when the storms swing south and begin to hit the ski resorts of Europe.
If my hypothesis is correct, the same thing can be said for West Coast winter weather. It is dependent on how warm the Sea of Japan gets during the summer before. If it was above average the snow level will rise because the Japanese current that goes north and is diverted by the Aleutian Islands to go south and controls West Coast weather.
Last summer was one of the coldest on record because the Japanese current was unusually cold. (This Japanese current theory is one of my own and subject to more investigation.)
Please see link above for the full article.
____________________________________________
I think Warren Miller has good points on the fact that there are many other factors that impact our climate besides CO2 emissions such as solar flares and other cycles we don’t yet understand. Miller is also on track when he stresses how global ocean circulation has a huge impact on our climate. But it works both ways… our climate can also impact ocean circulation. It does this by impacting the melting or freezing of the polar ice. This impacts the salinity and therefore density of the ocean in places which impacts the circulation of the ocean.
Clearly, we don’t understand all of the factors that dictate our climate. We must continue to learn more about these factors that impact the system that we call “climate”. While we still have a lot to learn, to ignore the fact that CO2 emissions may play a part in all of this is (in my opinion) naive.
Ski the 14ers Book
Posted by – December 5, 2007
Previously posted on my Thrillhead Blog
Chris Davenport has been unable to release a movie about his fourteener skiing, but he has been able to publish his book. A sneak peak of his book can be seen here:
Book
Check out the pictures! I think his book is going to be fun to read!
As a reminder, Chris Davenport is the first person to ski all of the fourteeners in a year. He finished this project a little over a year ago.
Big Puffs of White
Posted by – December 2, 2007
Previously posted on my Thrillhead Blog
Big puffs of white
Like stars in the night
Such a delight
To see snow so white
Crisp crystals sparkle everywhere
So amazing I can only stare
I think everyone knows
I belong with the snow!
Snow has FINALLY significantly hit Colorado for the first time since mid-October. It’s about time! This storm primarily hit the central and southern mountains of Colorado.
On Saturday I was literally giddy while driving up and over Berthoud Pass in the blizzard. But, I was disappointed to learn that Winter Park had barely anything open. They had 2 chairlifts, 3 runs, and about 500 feet of vert open. Lift lines were 30+ minutes. It was snowing all around us, but only in inches. I knew south of us it was snowing feet.
This promted me to drive that night to Crested Butte. What should normally take 4 hours took 7 hours. I couldn’t go more than 45 mph for all but about 30 minutes of driving. The drive was miserable. But, once I arrived, I was so happy!
When your car is parked for only 11 hours and then it looks like this, you know you’re going to probably have a good day.
Other cars that endured the blizzard in its enirety were even less recognizable.
The mountain was looking fantastic, whereas just 2 days ago it was a mound of brown.
View of snow blowing off the peak from the Silver Queen chair.
It was a fantastic blue-bird Colorado day. The mountains were sparkling with the new blanket of snow. Gothic is always one of my favorites.
Lift lines were a bit long today at Crested Butte because of the “ski free”. Yep, that’s right, ski free. For those of you who don’t know, you can ski free in Crested Butte until Dec. 15th. The mountain still has limited terrain open, but after the snow settles a bit from this storm, the mountain will be in good shape. It was good to ski real snow instead of the man-made kind!
I love snow!
